


The Escapades of the Blind Bandit and Meathead: Float On

by ArtemisRae



Series: Escapades of the Blind Bandit and Meathead [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-04
Updated: 2006-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRae/pseuds/ArtemisRae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost everybody celebrates the end of the war. Almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Escapades of the Blind Bandit and Meathead: Float On

* * *

The night was growing darker, and in response bright lamps were lit, bringing colorful splashes of light throughout the courtyard. Sokka looked up at them, grinning stupidly.

They were currently in Omashu, marking the three-year anniversary of the end of the war. Sokka and Toph hated to acknowledge it, but every year there was a huge celebration, and as key players in the event and generally loved public figures, Sokka and Toph were obligated to make an appearance as people remembered. They all were – Aang and Katara had spent the week traveling between cities and nations, using the anniversary as an opportunity to reinforce the message of peace (Katara had confessed she used the occasion to keep Aang busy so he couldn't focus too hard on any painful memories), and Zuko was holding longer court hours and was preparing to deliver speeches to both his and the Earth Kingdom people.

Sokka tipped his glass back, toasting Zuko and remembering the celebration Zuko had thrown at the Fire Nation capital the year before. Wondering why Zuko hadn't hosted again, he then caught sight of Toph stomping around, looking as anti-social as humanly possible as she moved in her cumbersome dress, clutching a goblet in one tiny hand. She threw herself down next to Sokka, emptied her goblet with one gulp, and slammed the cup down on the table next to his.

Memories of the day after last year's celebration filtered through – a mud covered and mussed up Toph, several destroyed priceless statues, and a couple furious Fire Nation advisors – and Sokka remembered why the Fire Nation had declined to host this year.

"I hate this," Toph mumbled, taking his cup right from his hands and sipping from it. Sokka frowned at her, then sighed and signaled a waiter to bring over more drinks.

"What do you hate?' asked Sokka, knowing that with Toph, the possibilities were endless.

"I hate that we're celebrating this. We _fought_ for this. This should be a day of mourning for the people that died." She pounded on the table, stressing her point.

"You're looking at it the wrong way." The waiter came up to Sokka to serve more wine; Sokka just grabbed the bottle from the tray and ignored the clean glass he was offered. He took a long drag and handed the bottle over to Toph. "This was a new beginning for us – for the world. We _should_ be celebrating that. Besides, I don't remember you being so against this last year-" He remembered suddenly Toph's itinerary for the day and blurted out, "They didn't make you go to that battlefield did they?"

Toph threw back her head and drained the bottle, throwing it over her shoulder behind her. Ignoring the surprised yelp that followed, Sokka signaled the waiter again as Toph reached out, looking for another drink. "Yeah, I went to the commemoration ceremony. Two hours, standing on a graveyard."

Sokka tsked in sympathy and took two bottles from the waiter, handing one to her in silent support.

"It was awful." Toph continued. "Every time I just shifted I could see the bones of people still buried there." She looked at Sokka miserably. "These people had families! Why would they want to celebrate people dying?"

"We're not celebrating people _dying_," Sokka explained patiently, knowing she wouldn't remember a word of their conversation later. "We're celebrating that we get to _live_."

Toph humphed and crossed her arms, pouting. At that moment, the lamps in the courtyard dimmed, and everyone automatically turned their heads up to the sky, waiting for the fireworks.

The first one – a bright green one – went off with a large boom, echoing across the courtyard. Several people cheered, but next to him Toph let out a yelp and slid under the table.

The fireworks continued above, but Sokka's attention had been stolen. Bending over, he peered under the table at the girl who was curled up into a ball.

"Toph?" he asked, tentatively.

Her head turned at the sound of his voice, and he nearly gasped out loud at the terrified look on it. "I'm too drunk to fight!" she hissed.

"We're not fighting!" he hissed back. "It's just some fireworks!"

"I know that noise," Toph insisted stubbornly. "That is the sound that those Fire Nation landmines make."

Sokka looked around, but everyone's attention was on the sky and not him, so he slithered under the table to join her. Banging his head on the top of the table, he remembered that he was, in fact, much larger than Toph, and folded up his body so that he could actually fit next to the trembling girl. His head somewhere in the vicinity of his knees, he leaned into her and said, "No, really Toph. Just fireworks. No fighting. No danger."

Toph turned to him, eyes wide and fearful. "I don't like them. They sound so much like battle…"

"One big difference," Sokka said, holding up a finger that she couldn't see. "Fireworks are pretty. Battle, not so much."

She contemplated this silently, then turned to him and asked curiously, "So what makes them so pretty?"

"What?"

"They sure _sound_ ugly. What makes them pretty?"

"You're asking me to describe fireworks to you?" At her nod, he thought for a moment before going, "They're like bright colors-"

"I don't know colors," Toph interrupted.

"They're like…" Sokka stroked his chin for a moment and then said excitedly, "Have you ever been punched in the head before?"

She nodded, and he continued. "Yeah! It's like when you get punched in the head, and you see that flash of light before you hit the floor, except its up in the sky and you don't wake up in a jail cell with a monster headache. And in different colors."

"I don't know about the headache," Toph said, covered her ears, and then looked at him suspiciously. "Is that what they're really like or are you just drunk?"

"Spirits honor!" Sokka held up placating hands. "Although I am drunk."

An explosion above them rocked the table – one of the fireworks had dropped dangerously low overhead before exploding. Toph shuddered, and Sokka said, "Hey, it's dark now. They won't notice if we leave."

She bit her lip before asking, "Can we go back to your room?"

Sokka's chest ached for a moment – she never allowed anyone to see this kind of vulnerability. The fireworks really had frightened her. Not sure if she had seen his nod, he said, "Of course," quietly and took her (very small) sweating hand into his (awkwardly large) dry one and started to lead her out from under the table.

* * *

Toph eventually dozed off on his bed, head buried under several large pillows, and Sokka sat, curled up in a chair next to a still-burning lamp and watched her. He mentally flipped back through the years and tried to remember if Toph had ever sat through fireworks with him before – last year's celebration at the Fire Nation had been interrupted (he remembered with a blush the crashing of the statues, and felt mortification well up inside him all over again), but surely there had been other times, even during the war, right?

Except there hadn't.

Funny, how they all dealt with their experiences that day three years ago. Aang became more passionate, throwing himself into his peacemaking. Katara focused all her energies on Aang, as if to reassure herself that yes, he really had lived through the battle and was still with her. Zuko withdrew from everyone privately, but joined Aang publicly, desperate to prove that he was not his father's son.

He and Toph, on the other hand, preferred denial. They preformed any public duties they were obligated to – like showing up to commemorate a battle field – then drank themselves silly, making inappropriate comments and generally scandalizing the poor souls who were in their presence. They dealt with it by not dealing with it.

This meant that, in previous years, by the time fireworks were typically shot off, he and Toph were either passed out or too incapacitated to notice.

He sighed, fighting the urge to crawl up next to her in the bed, and laid his head back in his chair and closed his eyes. Maybe next year, for her sake, they could forget the celebrations and he could talk her into finally visiting the South Pole.

* * *

She awoke with a start, breathing muffled by the several large pillows over her head. Toph yanked them off and sat up, scratching her head, curling her toes as her feet hit the pavement. She was pleased – despite how much she had drank the night before, she didn't feel too bad. Sokka had told her once, long ago, that the worst part of the hangover was having to open his eyes and acknowledge the light, which made his head hurt. She had laughed at him. She still laughed at him.

The object of her thoughts was curled up next to the table on the floor. The plates filled with breakfast foods were all untouched, though she noticed that he had worked his way through over half of the porcelain jug of coffee. One hand clutched the cup for dear life. The other hand was holding some documents – letters, maybe – which he was poring over, focused intently on the words.

"Morning."

He only grunted in response, and Toph felt a tiny shot of worry go through her. He pulled this every year, and yet she was always surprised by it.

Despite the fact that every year Sokka gave into the end-of-war celebrations with gusto, when the celebrations ended it seemed Sokka's good spirits ended also. With the hangover came this melancholy cloud that followed him around for weeks, until something – usually a large rock on Toph's part – snapped him out of it.

She hated this part of him more than anything. Everyone knew he was cynical and sarcastic, and while it wasn't a cover for his true emotions it was just one single part of him. The problem was that it was the loudest part of him – but Toph had met the part of him that was a romantic, and another part that was an optimist, and another (very secret, buried) part of him that hated the orange light at sunrise, because it reminded him of when the Fire Nation had attacked his village.

But this part of Sokka – the part that took over after the anniversary of the last battle – this part of Sokka was nothing. He felt nothing, he said nothing, he thought nothing. He was even more infuriating than the loud sarcastic part of him, and Toph knew she would be spending the next few weeks fighting the urge to choke him and demand that he show _some_ sort of emotion, _please_, because she was feeling all his emotions for him and she was going to explode.

"I was thinking," she said, laying down on the floor next to him and picking at the pastries on the table.

He grunted again.

"Maybe we should skip the rest of the parties."

Another grunt, though this one had a slight more interested tone to it.

"For the next ten years."

He looked up at her, eyebrows raised.

"You know, I was just thinking," she said lightly, wrapping a thick piece of hair from her bangs around a finger and twirling. "Neither one of us enjoyed last night. We're not going to enjoy tonight. We won't enjoy next year. Maybe we should just skip."

She left the end of her thought unspoken – _for your sake, so you don't withdraw into this nothing person again_ – and sat quietly while he considered her thought.

"I had a similar thought last night. I was thinking…"

His voice trailed off in thought, and at that moment there was a large crash from the hallway. It wasn't the same as last night – less intense and Toph could feel these vibrations through the floor – but she tensed nonetheless and scooted closer to him.

Sokka responded by wrapping an arm around her shoulders, bringing her even closer to him, and she leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes.

"I was thinking," he said flatly, "that I hated seeing you like this."

She listened to the powerful thud of his heart beating in his chest, and she knew, very suddenly and clearly that she worried him in the same way. Not sure if she was talking about him or herself, she said, "I was thinking the same thing."

* * *


End file.
